Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Be safe dear readers, tonight we will suffer through the worst storm since Winter Blast 2008. As of 7pm this evening the freezing rain has begun and without fail tomorrow work will be cancelled. All because of a thin sheet of ice that will no doubt melt by noon. Enjoy the time off. Tonight, for the sake of content, I made marinara sauce and angel hair pasta in honor of................ Chef Boyar G's.

That's from a throwaway sketch from this season of SNL. It has gotten progressively better as the weeks go on, eventually reaching this season's highlight, Gilley. But that is for another post. There will be several updates over the next couple of weeks as the Superbowl is this weekend and there will be much smoking of meats, especially ribs. I might do a brisket for good measure as well. We will have to see. Onto the marinara.

Ingredients:

(not pictured: Roma tomatoes and pasta)

Steps:

1) Halve 6 Roma tomatoes and cover them in olive oil, salt and pepper. Dont use too much olive oil unless you REALLY like olive oil, then do as you must. Roast tomatoes in oven for 1 hour at 375.

2) Chop 2 smallish white onions (I bought mine in a bag of 6 at the local grocer), 2 cloves of garlic and half a small container of portabella muhrooms.

3) With 15 minutes to go on the tomatoes, add chopped onions to 2 tablespoons of heated olive oil and cook (on medium high heat) until yellowish brown. Add sea salt as you go but not much. About a teaspoon will suffice.

4) After the onions are that yellowish brown stir in the garlic and cook for a few minutes.

5) Once you can smell the deliciousness of the onions and garlic, only a few minutes, stir in your chopped mushrooms, crushed red pepper (a bigger than small pinch) and cover on medium heat.

6) When the tomatoes have had a chance to cool down a bit, throw them in a blender and blend until you have a nice sauce. Six Roma's should give you about 2 cups of sauce. I like to use about 3 cups of sauce in my marinara, but this will be fine. Do the math yourself.

7) Once the tomatoes are sauced, add them to the onions, garlic and mushrooms. Cut up one small hand fulls of chopped fresh parsley and add to the sauce. I also added a couple turns of the pepper cracker, but only because I got some new peppercorns from Pendrey's and wanted to use it. Stir it up real good and cover on medium heat.

8) Add pasta to boiling water and wait. I used angel hair, but you can do what you want. This blog is not intended to tell you how to boil water or what boiled water looks like, so there will be no picture for this step.

9) Continue to stir sauce until it has reduced a little and has more of a red tint to it. Repeat.

10) After about 45 minutes your sauce should be good and ready. Strain your pasta and add to sauce for 5 or 10 more minutes on the medium heat.

Put it on your plate and eat. Let it cool a bit or you will burn your mouth. That is it.